Tatanka Owe Akupi returns to New York City in September for a two day event.
St. Anne’s Warehouse is pairing up with The Walk Productions for a project created by the Lenape and Lakota Nation Elders.
Using 50 life-sized Buffalo puppets, “Return of the Buffalo: Tatanka Owe Akupi” will pay tribute to New York’s Indigenous past with the puppets taking over the streets of Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan on September 19 and 20.
The project was created by Amir Nizar Zuabi with Elders from the Lenape and Lakota Nations. The Cape Town collective Ukwanda Puppets with director Craig Leo have designed the life-sized Buffalo puppets.
Speaking on the project via statement, The Walk Artistic Director Zuabi said, “the land that we call America today has been here for far more than 250 years, and this production memorializes that. The United States presents great hope, promise, and potential, as well as a history of destruction and loss. In this moment, we have a civic duty to come together as a community of global citizens to usher in a new chapter in America’s history, one that learns from its past, with empathy and respect for the land and all humans living on it.”
“The event will bring the buffalo puppets into the streets to roam, graze, and run wild among New Yorkers, with accompanying outdoor performance events to involve actors, civic leaders, gospel choirs, dance troupes, marching bands, musicians, and tribal ceremonies.”
St. Ann’s Founder and Artistic Director Susan Feldman said, “we are inviting New Yorkers to reflect and appreciate nature, our land, and our power to heal and renew. The story of the American buffalo reminds us of the near extinction of a majestic creature, and it acknowledges a magnificent human effort to rewild them. It represents the worst of us and the best of us.”